“Not tonight,” he said.
“But why? You’re wrong!” cried
Josephine.
He dropped his head and became oblivious.
“Well!” said Cyril Scott, rising at last
with a bored exclamation. “I think I’ll
retire.”
“Will you?” said Julia, also rising.
“You’ll find your candle outside.”
She went out. Scott bade good night, and followed
her. The four people remained in the room, quite
silent. Then Robert rose and began to walk about,
agitated.
“Don’t you go back to ’em.
Have a night out. You stop here tonight,”
Jim said suddenly, in a quiet intimate tone.
The stranger turned his head and looked at him, considering.
“Yes?” he said. He seemed to be
smiling coldly.
“Oh, but!” cried Josephine. “Your
wife and your children! Won’t they be
awfully bothered? Isn’t it awfully unkind
to them?”
She rose in her eagerness. He sat turning up
his face to her. She could not understand his
expression.
“Won’t you go home to them?” she
said, hysterical.
“Not tonight,” he replied quietly, again
smiling.
“You’re wrong!” she cried.
“You’re wrong!” And so she hurried
out of the room in tears.
“Er—what bed do you propose to put
him in?” asked Robert rather officer-like.
“Don’t propose at all, my lad,”
replied Jim, ironically—he did not like
Robert. Then to the stranger he said:
“You’ll be all right on the couch in my
room?—it’s a good couch, big enough,
plenty of rugs—” His voice was easy
and intimate.
Aaron looked at him, and nodded.
They had another drink each, and at last the two set
off, rather stumbling, upstairs. Aaron carried
his bowler hat with him.
Robert remained pacing in the drawing-room for some
time. Then he went out, to return in a little
while. He extinguished the lamps and saw that
the fire was safe. Then he went to fasten the
window-doors securely. Outside he saw the uncanny
glimmer of candles across the lawn. He had half
a mind to go out and extinguish them—but
he did not. So he went upstairs and the house
was quiet. Faint crumbs of snow were falling
outside.
When Jim woke in the morning Aaron had gone.
Only on the floor were two packets of Christmas-tree
candles, fallen from the stranger’s pockets.
He had gone through the drawing-room door, as he had
come. The housemaid said that while she was cleaning
the grate in the dining-room she heard someone go
into the drawing-room: a parlour-maid had even
seen someone come out of Jim’s bedroom.
But they had both thought it was Jim himself, for
he was an unsettled house mate.
There was a thin film of snow, a lovely Christmas
morning.
“The pillar of salt”
Our story will not yet see daylight. A few days
after Christmas, Aaron sat in the open shed at the
bottom of his own garden, looking out on the rainy
darkness. No one knew he was there. It
was some time after six in the evening.
